


Westward leaving (through the ceiling)

by ladylikepunk



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Christmas, Gen, Oh Dear, what is this nonsense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-24
Updated: 2012-12-24
Packaged: 2017-11-22 08:01:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/607614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladylikepunk/pseuds/ladylikepunk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This has been living in my head. Happy Christmas!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Westward leaving (through the ceiling)

Natasha only moved in with Clint after they'd ended the unparalleled trainwreck they'd called their relationship. To be fair, they hadn't so much ended things as called a stalemate, and it was only thanks to Coulson banging their heads together that they hadn't ended up killing each other.

It had been Sitwell, however, who had suggested they'd moved off-base, observing that they were the only ones except for the very junior agents living in assigned quarters, and that they could both more than afford a decently-sized flat somewhere in the city. Moving in together had been Clint's idea; they both wanted someone to watch their back, and they both knew that they only people they really trusted do to that were Coulson and each other. And Coulson had threatened to tase them the last time they'd tried to sleep on his sofa.

Natasha liked their little flat. It was tiny - the bedrooms barely big enough for their beds, the kitchen only big enough for one person at a time. Not that this bothered Natasha, because Clint did all the cooking - she  _hated_ cooking. Eventually, the flat stopped looking like a safehouse and started looking like home; Natasha bought bookshelves to hold the books she'd previously kept in boxes underneath her bed, Clint framed several art prints he'd picked up on a mission in Paris, and they fought over him painting the bathroom purple when she'd been on a mission in Guatemala. The bathroom stayed purple, and Clint very sensibly didn't say anything when Natasha dyed all their towels to coordinate. 

That first year in their flat, they'd spent Thanksgiving getting shot at in Mongolia (Coulson had nonetheless produced turkey MREs, which were utterly disgusting even by the levels of MREs), and then they'd both been on a mission in Thailand for most of late November and the start of December, followed by the traditional post-mission stay in medical for Clint, who had managed to impale himself on a piece of broken metal, thankfully missing any major organs, but instead developing sceptecemia because he'd insisted on zipping his tac vest over the wound and not telling Coulson until he keeled over on the plane home. That had been fun for everyone. Natasha had almost felt sorry for the doctor who had tried to tell Coulson that Clint didn't need the two of them sitting by his bedside for every hour of the day. 

They'd gotten him out of medical three days before Christmas; Natasha had tucked a plastic bottle of antibiotics in her bag, and Coulson had driven them home. The three of them had sat on the sofa and eaten takeaway pizza, and Clint had fallen asleep halfway through Die Hard, sprawled across both of them, with his feet in Coulson's lap. He'd not woken up when Coulson carried him into his bedroom, or when Natasha had curled around him, smelling of lavender from her bath. 

Natasha's usual approach to post-mission wind-down took the same form every time. After one or both of them got out of medical, she and Clint shared pizza with Coulson (Coulson was very rarely in medical himself, but they would wait for him). Then she would take a long, almost-scalding bath, or stand under the shower until the hot water ran out, before sleeping for the best part of twenty-four hours, usually waking the next evening to the smell of Clint cooking spaghetti bolognase, tomatoes and basil and fresh beef from the butcher a few blocks away.

This time, she didn't smell bolognase - instead, there was roasting turkey, and hot wine. Clint was singing, loudly - how that hadn't woken her up, she wasn't entirely sure. She suspected he was singing christmas carols, although she was pretty certain carols didn't contain lines about scouse comedians or dynamite. She put it down to being Russian and not Clint Barton.

There was a large pine tree taking up most of the living room, and Clint had somehow managed to strew tinsel over everything, and baubles over the rest - the tiny room was a riot of colour and glitter. Clint had apparently tied a small model of Jack Bauer to the top of the tree in place of a fairy, and there we're several large jelly spiders lurking in the branches of the tree.

Clint was wearing a Santa hat. And nothing else. 

"Fucking hell, Clinton," Natasha muttered. "Is that hygenic?"

Clint turned, and grinned, displaying his apron. "Evening sleeping beauty," he waved a spatula at her. 

"What the fuck are you doing?" 

"Christmas dinner!"

"Why?"

"Because its Christmas, Nat," Clint replied, turning back to his cooking. "Christmas eve. Turkey time!"

**Author's Note:**

> The carol Clint is singing is "We Three Kings". His version goes like this:
> 
> We three kings of orient are  
> One in a taxi one in a car  
> One on a scooter honking his hooter  
> Following Freddie Starr
> 
> Oh-oh star of wonder star of light  
> On a box of dynamite  
> Westward leaving through the ceiling  
> Star of wonder star of light


End file.
